As Abby DeWald
puts it, "Why not have a calendar of girls with
little tits and big asses wearing bikinis, on
bicycles?" And that's exactly what
you'll find: the Ditty Bops Bicycle Bikini 2006
Calendar, for sale at www.thedittybops.com, a Web site
as antic as Abby and partner Amanda Barrett's
band.
The Ditty Bops
meld ragtime, music hall, folk, and whatnot into an
easygoing, toe-tapping concoction with intriguing lyrical
twists. Abby--the shorter, wiry one who sort of
looks like Jennifer Jason Leigh--plays acoustic
guitar and usually sings lead; Amanda--the tall,
modelesque one with the Louise Brooks bob (she actually did
model for 11 years) --plays mandolin, dulcimer,
and washboard and sings Naomi Judd- style alto
harmonies. Together they write the songs and create
elaborate theatrical shows complete with props,
costumes, skits, and amusing slide shows. (The duo
will bicycle from Los Angeles to New York this summer,
playing 12-15 gigs of varying sizes along the way.)
Take their recent
performance at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, which
variously included a three-piece band, a ballerina, and a
winged male angel who played a gorgeous harp solo.
Then there was Abby's jaw-dropping outfit: a
sheer jumpsuit with strategically placed cover-ups. Was she
perhaps inspired by Cher from her "If I Could Turn
Back Time" days?
"I'll dedicate it to Cher,"
acknowledges Abby, laughing. "We love Cher. But
I also want to credit our designer, Louis Verdad."
It's
obvious that the L.A.-based Ditty Bops love to dress
up and put on a show. What isn't as obvious is
that they're a couple in life as well as
music--girlfriends for the past seven years. "I
had never been in a relationship longer than a month
before," admits Amanda, at 27 a year younger
than Abby. They first met at the University of California,
Davis, where Abby was studying art (her whimsical
drawings decorate their Web site and the cover of
their first Warner Bros. album, The Ditty
Bops). Then they ran into each other months later across
the country at a midnight screening of The Rocky
Horror Picture Show in New York City.
"We spend
an insane amount of time together," says Abby,
describing their life since then. They don't
hide their relationship, but they don't exactly
sing "I Got You, Babe" onstage either. The
closest thing to an "out" song on their
album is "There's a Girl," which goes,
"There's a girl who's close to me
/ Closer than you'd like to think..."
Actually, Abby insists, "Everything we write is
a love song to each other." Aw.
Their second
album, Moon Over the Freeway, will come out in a few
months. "This one is more like our live sound, with
embellishments," says Amanda.
"We've been playing a lot of these songs
during our last year of touring, seeing which ones go
over well."
It doesn't
seem like the Ditty Bops put much restraint on their
creativity, but one wonders what sort of show they'd
do if they had the budget of an arena act.
"Lack of funding challenges you to be extra
creative and can lead to some of the coolest moments in a
show," says Amanda. "But if I had gobs
of dough to spend, maybe I would fly around like Peter
Pan while playing, rent a mechanical bull to ride, and
shower flower petals from the ceiling."